Nonvolatile memory filesystems such as a flash memory are used to store persistent data. The nature of a flash memory allows a filesystem media manager to write data in one direction (i.e., bring data from a logic 1 to a logic 0) before an erase operation on a memory block is required. Data is typically marked as valid when it is created and is marked invalid when updated with a newer copy that becomes the valid copy, resulting in a memory device that contains a single valid copy of data and many copies of invalid data (or portions thereof), until an erase operation is performed on the memory block.
A transacted database tracks updates in groups of operations on data. For an example, a business card database may include entries relating to addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers, and the like. A partial update of information in an entry is problematic, as a modification is only saved if all of the relevant data has been updated, and a database commit operation occurs. If only a partial update was completed, the system unwinds the modification to the original data via a database abort operation. As data is updated, the database may copy the original data and a string of operations to a cache to support a transaction capability. Similarly, a transacted filesystem may incur significant additional overhead to maintain a transaction log independent of the memory device. A need thus exists to track data modifications without such overhead.